EU: Security research
programme to look at creating "smart" biometric documents
which will "locate, identify and follow the movement of
persons" through "automatic chips with positioning"A Communication from the European Commission
(COM 2004/72) sets out very new roles for the European Union
to bring about "comprehensive security":

1) intrusive internal security which will track the movements
and purchases of every person
2) external security which will seek to complete the closure
of land and sea borders to "illegal" migrants
3) intervention in "failed states" and "regional
conflicts" either "on its own or in international alliances"
4) to build a "security culture" with the "security
industry and the research community"
5) in a world of "global threats, markets and media, security
and prosperity" to create an "international order based
on effective multilaterialism" - or put another way in a
world based on globalisation, media monopoly, insecurity and
poverty in order to maintain the dominance of the USA and the
EU
6) to create a military-industrial-research consensus on the
desired direction including "federating industrial effort"
(see: the "Group of Personalities" below)
7) to introduce "internationally interoperable systems,
in particular between defence and other security organisations"
8) prepare the EU for the "management of a declared crisis"
(an EU "state of emergency")

and finally

9) the "adaptation of governance structures to effectively
deal with these matters"

This is a direction and ideology deserving of genuine research
- not the kind likely to be funded by the EU. For the moment
two comments might be made. First the aim is to examine whether
the:

"Demonstration of the appropriateness and acceptability
of tagging, tracking and tracing devices by static and mobile
multiple sensors that improve the capability to locate, identify
and follow the movement of mobile assets, goods and persons,
including smart documentation (e.g. biometrics, automatic chips
with positioning) and data analysis techniques (remote control
and access)." (emphasis added)

It is well known that there have been commercial experiments
- which have met much opposition - to introduce "tags"
to track clothes and goods we buy. The Commission, following
instructions from the Council (the EU governments), are proposing
to "look into" the proposition that every phone and
vehicles, purchase of clothes or any goods, and every movement
of every person carrying any kind of card (bank. credit card,
passport, visa card and identity card) can be tracked every minute,
of every day.

Second that the Commission says that it has set up a "high
level Group of Personalities" comprised of Chief Executives
"from industry" (who are they?), people from "research
institutes" (no doubt funded by the EU "noddy lobby"),
"high level European political figures" (who are they?),
members of the European Parliament (who are they?) and "observers
from intergovernmental institutions" (who are they?). And
since when were "Personalities" accountable to anyone?

Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments,

"Prior to 11 September the EU saw itself as an independent
military and economic power to the USA. Now they have common
aims: to maintain military, security, political and economic
dominance.

For the people of the EU (and, in time, of the USA) the
price of "security" is that they will be asked to sacrifice
their privacy and democratic culture (of diversity, pluralism,
tolerance and multiculturalism) in the interests of security,
of the "interests of the state". All phones and internet
usage, all travel by air, sea and road, all clothes and goods,
and every peoples' movement - to the shop, work, friends and
school etc - will be tracked and logged in the name of preserving
"democracy".

Moreover, the idea that we should all feel "safe"
because a "Group of Personalities" - perhaps better
named as a "Group of Dr Strangeloves" - are going to
oversee the process is an insult to peoples' intelligence. The
EU clearly has no idea of the resistance it is going to face
from its own citizens if it goes down this road"

2.The above is said to be based
on: The European Security Strategy, drafted by Javier Solana
(12.12.03) by the European Council: "A
Secure Europe in a better world" (pdf) and the European
Council on European Security and Defence: Conclusions
(pdf)

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